As the amount of prior art information continues to grow rapidly, the number of users who are new to the field of prior art searching also continues to grow. To assist users in identifying prior art, there are information gathering and retrieval tools and services. Users are likely to navigate patent and technical publication databases to search for relevant prior art. However, without assistance from a service that provides prior art search experts, a user is unlikely to find relevant prior art quickly and efficiently.
Increasingly, prior art information gathering and retrieval services are faced with a market full of users who want to be able to search for very specific prior art information, as quickly as possible, and without being burdened with false positives. Unfortunately, the currently available prior art searching technologies do not provide a user-friendly, comprehensive and versatile solution.